Purple Pearl Mini Quilt

For my grandmother’s birthday recently, I made her a mini quilt. When I first saw Lizzy House’s Pearl Bracelet fabric, I knew that I had to use it in a present for my grandma. You see, my late grandfather used to lovingly call her his “pearl of great price.” He passed away this last spring, and our family misses him very much.

Keeping the pearl theme in mind, I embroidered Proverbs 31:10 and then bordered the embroidery with two rows of 1” by 1” squares. I just made it up as I went along. It finished at about 9” by 10.5”.

Since this was a birthday present, I also made a coordinating gift bag. I used the same fabrics in a block from the book Modern Blocks. The block is Everything Equal by Louise Papas. Both the mini quilt and the gift bag were made entirely out of scraps.

Eighth Finish of 2011: Forest Friends Embroidery

I’m a rather domestic person in general, but while I was pregnant, my nesting urges took an unexpected turn. Suddenly, I wanted to embroider. At first, I didn't know what I wanted to embroider, just that I wanted to. I started poking around the interwebs and stumbled upon the Forest Friends transfers from Sublime Stitching. They were the perfect for our forest themed nursery. I ordered a kit, and then promised myself that I would start stitching them once I had completed all the thank you notes for the plethora of baby gifts we had received. I didn’t finish the thank you notes until the day I checked into the hospital, so I didn’t start working on these until after my baby was born. It actually took two long road trips for me to start and complete all three pieces. I added the Spanish word for each animal, for that personal touch. I’m very happy with how they turned out, but if I were to make them again, I would do two things differently. First, I would not use variegated thread. Second, I would frame them in embroidery hoops and not in picture frames. Now I just have to think of other things to embroider forest animals on.

Sixth Finish of 2011: Unicorn Pillowcase

A couple of weeks ago, I finished my unicorn pillowcase. This project was more about the process than the end result. I bought the unicorn transfers from Sublime Stitching. I intended the unicorns to be nostalgic and/or ironic and they turned out on the childish side instead. As such, this pillowcase ended up in the nursery instead of on my pillow. I really enjoyed stitching it, though. As I was working on it, I learned a new stitch (chain stitch) and relearned another one (French knot). Now I have to decide what pattern I want on my next pillowcase.